I'm pretty uneducated on this matter, so help me out.

[MrW]

Yeah, China also invested heavily in our housing market. We brought down the world economy along with us so we're still on top of the whole shithole. China is scrambling as well as Europe, the main beef we have with Iran isn't about nukes, it's about Iran trying to change the currency to purchase oil globally from the dollar to the euro.

Every country that wants to purchase oil from OPEC countries need to first exchange to the dollar. It's another reason other countries are faltering - because they all rely on the dollar so heavily.

The rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one, so Obama has a ton of different economists pulling him in different directions with theories and such on how to manage this.

Personally I say fuck the banks, they're not flooding the market with money on the last bailout, and they have a provision in this one saying they don't have to lend. And now Republicans are bitching that Obama wants to cap executive pay for CEO's running bailed out companies. It's an absolute shit show.

Wall Street's success doesn't ignite consumer confidence, easing our day to day burdens will. Get our minds off of job security and taxes, flood the actual market with money from the bottom up not the top down. I don't know how companies think that by laying people off its going to help them, it only freaks people out more and stops the flow of cash.

No ones coming around to homeowners saying "Hey, you made a bad decision. Let us pay off your house and you get to keep it. Sound good?"

Of course not, but these assfuck lenders are getting that treatment. "Oh you fucked up and drove a multi-billion dollar corporation into the ground. Atta boy, here's a couple bil, go ahead and give it another shot."

Absolute fucking nonsense. For every oppressive ideal we've fought and won, we're now at the point where we're being oppressed by money. We're forced to create debt as a consumer and judged based on our credit, which banks can make new rules and manipulate with zero oversight and control the entire country with an intangible product. Then when they fuck up; the consumer, this time as a taxpayer, bails them out?

The Dems have it right putting funding for school programs and science and industry. These will work because it creates jobs and gives the resources to demand and flow into other industries. Putting more money into defunct banks with bad policies is not the answer. Let them fall apart, let the government buy them, fire the people running them and nationalize credit. It's very hard to take advantage of people when no profit is at stake. The horrible policies of the 80's and 90's are turning to a head and becoming very transparent, I can't believe there's even a debate about this.

This is what I was going to say but his avatar is better than mine :/
Amen.

[Kuya]

It's fucking dumb. We dont need a stimulus package, most people just end up keeping it or using it on something dumb. It's a waste of money, and like it's been said, taxes are going to be through the roof for this generation.

The stimulus pack is not just handing people money, i'm not even sure if that's part of the package. The money is going to a lot of places, and you're not getting your taxes raised at the moment.

I for one hope that if this doesn't get passed, that there is a heavy effort to increase unemployment benefits as well as increasing the length of time it lasts, as well as many social programs to combat the social unrest the recession is causing/going to cause. If they're not going to stimulate the economy, then they should deal with the consequences of the downturn.

[Acturus]

Forgive student loans, offset housing payments and give tax breaks for homeowners, and subsidize some of the interest on credit card debt.

Please?

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

GOP in the Bush years: massive spending on "fighting terror" coupled with massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations means America is on the path to greatness and freedom and everything good in the world

GOP in the Age of Obama: omg massive spending means disaster for amurrica, great depression part deux incoming oh gawd

Because you aren't truly pro-life unless you want to wage war on the countries of people with great fucking tans in the name of freedom.

[Correction]

Make credit *harder* to get, it used to be a privilege, not a right.

Personal credit I'd agree, but the fact that credit isn't being extended to businesses is what's causing a lot of the layoffs and closures.

[fstfrk13]

It's fucking dumb. We dont need a stimulus package, most people just end up keeping it or using it on something dumb. It's a waste of money, and like it's been said, taxes are going to be through the roof for this generation.

For one the ONLY way out of a recession is government spending because consumers are too afraid to spend money. So they made a stimulus spending package instead of just sending out checks because consumers wouldn't of used the money anyways. And its not "wasting" money because you HAVE to spend it or you end up like japan in the 90's and have a recession lasting 10 years. (they had the exact same thing happened to them 15 years ago) And the reason that happened is because they waited 3 years before government spending and it was too late. this is why Obama is trying to get it through congress as fast as he can.

And to all those worried about taxes being raised later, we have even more pressing matters when the economy does actually get better again, because inflation could be double digits if the fed doesn't catch it fast enough. And taxes won't needed to be raised as long as the deficit doesn't grow faster than GDP, deficit spending is fine as long as they don't increase it faster than the country grows. Oh and making unemployment benefits better will only make unemployment even worse because people are more willing to stay unemployed longer.

[BarthelloSylph]

GOP in the Bush years: massive spending on "fighting terror" coupled with massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations means America is on the path to greatness and freedom and everything good in the world

GOP in the Age of Obama: omg massive spending means disaster for amurrica, great depression part deux incoming oh gawd

At least the GOP is getting closer to being actually conservative: which means big spending on almost nothing.

[Acturus]

Bullshit. Make more people pay credit cards off, cut all limits down. I haven't had a CC since 2001 and I'm still paying the stupid things off.

Make credit *harder* to get, it used to be a privilege, not a right.

While we're at it, pay teachers more. Improving our schools (which really are the laughingstock of a lot of the world) would go far.

BTW, cut all Fortune 500 CEO/Exec salaries to $1m/yr, they'd have to sell some stuff off, but they'd be fine. Seriously. A million bucks a year? That's probably more than I'd see in my lifetime. If they're seriously doing more than giving lip service to saving their job, they'd do it.

I agree with all your points, but how exactly could anyone enforce someone else paying more to clear their CC debt?

I heard this morning on the radio that a credit card company (JP Morgan Chase I think) is upping their minimum balance payment from 2% to 5% and adding a $150 annual fee that gathers interest for those accounts that aren't making significant progress. Seeing as how credit card companies aren't alleviating their high interest percentages and pre-approval scams in the first place, moves like this are just looking for more money and more defaulting.

[Correction]

A LARGE problem is that many people (myself included) were never educated how those kinds of things work, and now we're reaping the 'benefits' (bad credit score, etc) a few years down the line.

It's not the government's fault you couldn't read the credit card agreement before signing it and spending your way into oblivion.

Living off pure debt is a catalyst for deflation. Knock it off, don't expect someone to spoon feed you life's lessons.

[zoobernut]

I agree with all your points, but how exactly could anyone enforce someone else paying more to clear their CC debt?

Raising interest on accounts that haven't been used for a while, or simply closing them?

I don't know, though I see your point. A LARGE problem is that many people (myself included) were never educated how those kinds of things work, and now we're reaping the 'benefits' (bad credit score, etc) a few years down the line.

This is a big problem because the general attitude in this country is that someone else should take care of it and be responsible and no one wants to take responsibility for themselves. Having a credit card should not be an automatic thing for people and they should not expect to have a credit card unless they understand the responsibilities and risks involved.

This country is addicted to spending money and so many people will do anything they can to buy crap including using/having credit cards they do not understand well enough to have.

Edit: What Correction said.

[Acturus]

I don't know, though I see your point. A LARGE problem is that many people (myself included) were never educated how those kinds of things work, and now we're reaping the 'benefits' (bad credit score, etc) a few years down the line.

I agree with that. My wife and I racked up about 4K in Credit Card debt just by being stupid. We were blessed with a large sum of money when we got married, and most of it went to clearing our debt.

Personal credit, in the system that it's in, just means that a lot of people (I'm curious about the statistic) are effed up for a while to come, and even after they get their debt settled, they'll have bad marks against their score for 7 years after. That kind of long-term is counter productive for the current belief that "quick repairs" are in order.

But I still say that a sufficient amount of any bailout monies should go towards forgiving existing student loans and increasing government money towards education. Education is an appreciating asset that should be treated as such.

[Correction]

Personal credit, in the system that it's in, just means that a lot of people (I'm curious about the statistic) are effed up for a while to come, and even after they get their debt settled, they'll have bad marks against their score for 7 years after. That kind of long-term is counter productive for the current belief that "quick repairs" are in order.

But I still say that a sufficient amount of any bailout monies should go towards forgiving existing student loans and increasing government money towards education. Education is an appreciating asset that should be treated as such.

Are you suggesting that people with bad credit should get shored up on the government dime so they're not so afraid to continue spending? That's kind of a scary proposition.

[Daemien]

BTW, cut all Fortune 500 CEO/Exec salaries to $1m/yr, they'd have to sell some stuff off, but they'd be fine. Seriously. A million bucks a year? That's probably more than I'd see in my lifetime. If they're seriously doing more than giving lip service to saving their job, they'd do it.

You realize that a very small portion of the money most CEOs make is from salary, right? Most of the money comes in the form of bonuses and stock options. Good luck putting a cap on that

[Acturus]

Are you suggesting that people with bad credit should get shored up on the government dime so they're not so afraid to continue spending? That's kind of a scary proposition.

Not without some sort of repurcussion, but the reality as I see it is that people either continue to pay minimum balances, which solves nothing, or defaulting as banks increase the pressure to return the money, which also solves nothing.

I'm all for some sort of assistance in paying personal debt if it was in exchange for a longer penalty on the credit report, or a special mark on the credit report to be viewed by future lending entities as they see fit (a hall of fame asterisk of sorts). I'd be equally disposed to not helping the existing individual debts, but reducing the 7 year penalty on credit to maybe 3-4 for relatively smaller amounts, and working something else entirely for home loans. But looking at having both the debt system on personal loans and the 7-year mark on all credit problems right here and now just screams "catch-22" to me.

[Correction]

Why do people with terrible credit deserve a break? They aren't entitled to car and home ownership, and there are perfectly satisfactory ways of living without both. And if you can't live for 7 years without fucking up your credit again then you in no way deserve a loan for anything. Enjoy your walmart job.

Next you'll be saying that bankruptcies should be expunged.

[Azkarin2]

I agree with Correction. I think it was Clinton was started the "everybody should own a hosue" initiative and that is part of the real estate crisis we have today. Not everybody is responsibly enough to make consistent mortgage payments and giving money to these people is just a horrible idea long-term fiscally. I don't want to see the same thing happening with credit cards, etc.

As for limiting the salaries of corp. executives I think that is a good idea but needs to be implemented carefully. Limiting salaries can force talent overseas to where caps may not be in place. While costs need to be curtailed (especially with some companies receiving billions in Federal aid), downsizing talent should not be an unintended result.

[Demosthenes11]

cap on pay? are you fucking kidding me? maybe we should cap their fun too.

i can't believe this is even being discussed. Let's have the government tell us what jobs we should work too, along with how much we should get payed. Maybe tell us how much we should be driving too, or even how much food we may consume.

I am scared of you people sometimes

[TheShadyMan]

Limiting people's salaries seems pretty anti-capitalist to me.

[archibaldcrane]

I agree with Correction. I think it was Clinton was started the "everybody should own a hosue" initiative and that is part of the real estate crisis we have today.

God I wish everyone would stop spouting this talking point like it is gospel.

Clinton's "housing for all" initiative is called the Community Reinvestment Act. Here's the wikipedia for-and-against whether the CRA contributed to the current financial crisis:

Some economists, politicians and other commentators have charged that the CRA contributed in part to the 2008 financial crisis by encouraging banks to make unsafe loans. Others however, including the economists of the Federal Reserve, dispute this contention. The Federal Reserve holds that empirical research has not validated any relationship between the CRA and the 2008 financial crisis.

Economist Stan Liebowitz wrote in the New York Post that a strengthening of the CRA in the 1990s encouraged a loosening of lending standards throughout the banking industry. He also charges the Federal Reserve with ignoring the negative impact of the CRA. In a commentary for CNN, Congressman Ron Paul, who serves on the United States House Committee on Financial Services, charged the CRA with "forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks." In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Austrian school economist Russell Roberts wrote that the CRA subsidized low-income housing by pressuring banks to serve poor borrowers and poor regions of the country. Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University, in an opinion piece for CNN, calls for “getting rid” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that “pressure banks into subprime lending.”

However, others dispute the involvement of the CRA in the crisis. San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Governor Randall Kroszner has stated that no empirical evidence had been presented to support the claim that "the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending". In a Bank for International Settlements ("BIS") working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust," relying partly on evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event. Others have also have concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the current financial crisis, for example, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan, Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress, Robert Gordon of the American Prospect, Daniel Gross of Slate, and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.

Some legal and financial experts note that CRA regulated loans tend to be safe and profitable, and that subprime excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA. In the February 2008 House hearing, law professor Michael S. Barr, a Treasury Department official under President Clinton, stated that a Federal Reserve survey showed that affected institutions considered CRA loans profitable and not overly risky. He noted that approximately 50% of the subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Barr noted that institutions fully regulated by CRA made "perhaps one in four" sub-prime loans, and that "the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight". According to Janet L. Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent mortgage companies made risky "high-priced loans" at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the higher-priced loans that have contributed to the current crisis. A 2008 study by Traiger & Hinckley LLP, a law firm that counsels financial institutions on CRA compliance, found that CRA regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when they did the interest rates were lower. CRA banks were also half as likely to resell the loans. Emre Ergungor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that there was no statistical difference in foreclosure rates between regulated and less-regulated banks, although a local bank presence resulted in fewer foreclosures

If it's not tl;dr for you, read and make up your own mind, I'm not seeing much of a link.

[Azkarin2]

When I agreed with cap on pay I was more referring to the golden parachutes and other ridiculous clauses in some CEO's contracts. Bob Nardelli is the perfect example. He stayed at Home Depot for less than a year and managed to drive them into the ground and he walked away with what... 200 million? That is absurd. As an investor I'd want some sort of cap on stuff like that. But as for annual salaries of non-top execs I don't think that is a good idea.

Arch, I don't think that the housing crisis can be solely blamed on the Clinton administration. The Wiki article made some good points but I still believe it has some influence on the current situation. If the CRA didn't take those initiatives, would we still have the current housing shithole? Yeah but I don't think it would be as bad. There is a lot of different reasons for today's issue, this is just one of the many